'Weird Florida' highlights our wacky people, places

Just ask historian Charlie Carlson and his brown boxer, Lady Isabel. The pair explored1,500 miles of the state in a black Hyundai Santa Fe SUV, rounding up our more unusual tropical characters and locales for a new documentary, "Weird Florida: On The Road Again."

The documentary, at 8 p.m. Jan. 9 on WLRN-Ch. 17 in South Florida, is a sequel to "Weird Florida: Roads Less Traveled," which aired on PBS stations locally and nationally two years ago. That program, which has had 2 million viewers since its broadcast, followed Carlson as he visited some of the state's stranger sites.

The secondinstallment opens in South Florida with the pair arriving in Key Biscayne to visit the Neptune Memorial Reef, an underwater cemetery 40 feet below the surface. Carlson said it looked like "the lost continent of Atlantis."

"Here again is a weird place that many people don't even know about,'' says Carlson, 68, a self-described "weird-ologist."

"You can't see it unless you put on a scuba diver's equipment."

Cameras capture Carlson and canine as they drive north to West Palm Beach to introduce viewers to knife-throwing daredevil Cynthia Morrison, also known as "The Great Cindini." In the segment, Morrison shoots a dozen steel knives at a very visibly nervous Carlson.

"I hope her prescription is up to date,'' Carlson confesses to viewers in his folksy narration. "You have to go to an old-time circus to see what she does."

Carlson and the crew stick around Palm Beach County to tour the Kennedy Bunker, a tin cylinder 27 feet underground built for President John F. Kennedy in the event of a nuclear attack.

WLRN producer Mia Laurenzo says she wanted to take viewers on a TV tour of seldom-seen attractions.

"I like it when viewers say, 'Wow, I really didn't know that' — especially people who live here,'' says Laurenzo, who traveled with Carlson, the dog and a cameraman for several weeks beginning in May.

The Hollywood resident got the idea for the documentaries after spotting Carlson's 2005 book, "Weird Florida: Your Travel Guide to Florida's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets." Taking a cue from the classic series "Ripley's Believe It or Not!," the WLRN show also has segments on creepy legends such as a lake monster in the city of Frostproof and a "skunk-ape" north of Lakeland.

"It's not your typical PBS travel show which tells you about the types of food, the culture, the area and [has] these beautiful sweeping aerial pans,'' Laurenzo says. "'Weird Florida' is campy. We take a look at these roadside attractions."

Adds Carlson: "We take a little license when we are out there. We throw in some humor."

While some of the spots featured in the program are from Carlson's book, others were found along the way. Viewers tag along as the show stops a clown school in Lake Placid and a "haunted" restaurant in Rockledge, where dishes have been known to mysteriously fly off the shelves.

"We reach into the heart of Florida and we bring out some of the history that has been shoved under the carpet,'' says Carlson, who lives in New Smyrna Beach. "You might say that the show is a history show in disguise, but history can be kind of weird."